has lived to some purpose," it was said, "whose appointment instantly raises the credit of his country, through the simple conviction of his honor and integrity."

General Dix repaired at once to Washington, leaving the New York Post-office in other hands, and was the guest of President Buchanan at the Executive Mansion until the close of the administration-from January 11 to March 4, 1862. He found the Treasury Department in the utmost irregularity. Public business, with all its complex details, had been neglected complaints from every part of the country unheeded, requisitions from the various departments amounting to nearly $2,000,000 on the table, with no funds to meet them, and Treasury notes overdue to the extent of at least $8,350,000. He struggled incessantly to bring order out of chaos, and was marvelously successful. He was able to transfer into the hands of Salmon P. Chase, President Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, a balance of $6,000,000, applicable to the current expenses of the Government. It was on the 29th of January that the famous telegram was written referring to the American flag, which made such a profound impression on the country, falling like a live coal of fire upon a mass of material ready to ignite. Its history is contained in his letter to Mrs. William Blodgett, of New York, published for the first time in the volume of Memoirs by his son.*

"Head-quarters, Department of the East,

New York City, March 31, 1865.

MY DEAR MRS. BLODGETT-I fulfill the promise made to you last summer, to give you the history of the order issued by me to shoot any man who should attempt to haul down the American flag. The only request I make is that no publication shall be given to it during my life and Mr. Buchanan's. * *

*

I entered upon my duties (as Secretary of the Treasury) on the 15th day of January, 1861, and at Mr. Buchanan's urgent request stayed with him at the President's house. Forts, arsenals, and revenue cutters in the southern states had been seized by the local authorities. No effort had been made by the Government to secure its property; and there was an apparent indifference in the public mind to these outrages which was incomprehensible to me. On the 18th of January, three days after I entered on my duties, I sent a special messenger, W. Hemphill Jones, Esq., who was chief clerk in one of the bureaus of the Treasury Department, to New Orleans, for the purpose of saving the revenue cutters in that city. He was then to proceed to Mobile and Galveston and try to save the revenue cutters there. My orders were to provision them and send them to New York. I knew if they remained there that the state authorities would take possession of them.

I received from Mr. Jones, on the 29th of January, the despatch published on page 440, vol. ii. of my speeches, advising me that Captain Breshwood, of the revenue cutter McClelland, refused to obey my order. It was about seven o'clock in the evening. I had dined, and was at the Department as usual transacting business. The moment I read it I wrote the following order:

*Memoirs of John Adams Dix. By Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D. Harper Brothers, 1883.

Treasury Department, January 29, 1861.

Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Breshwood, assume command of the cutter, and obey the order I gave you. If Captain Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of the cutter, tell Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer, and treat him accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot. John A. Dix, Secretary of the Treasury.'

Not a word was altered; but the original was handed to the clerk charged with the custody of my telegraphic despatches, copied by him, and the copy signed by me and sent to its destination. Before I sent it, however, a question of military etiquette arose in my mind in regard to the arrest of Captain Breshwood, and I took a carriage and drove to the lodgings of Lieutenant-General Scott, to consult him in regard to it. Mr. Stanton was then Attorney-General. My relations with him were of the most intimate character; and as he resided near General Scott's lodgings I drove to his house first, and showed the dispatch to him. He approved of it, and made some remark expressing his gratification at the tone of the order. General Scott said I was right on the question of etiquette, and I think expressed his gratification that I had taken a decided stand against Southern invasions of the authority of the Government. I immediately returned to the Department and sent the despatch. General Scott, Mr. Stanton, and the clerk who copied it were the only persons who saw it.

It was on Tuesday evening, the weekly drawing-room evening of Miss Lane, and before nine o'clock I was with her visitors.

I decided when I wrote the order to say nothing to the President about it. I was satisfied that, if he was consulted, he would not permit it to be sent. Though indignant at the course of the southern states and the men about him who had betrayed his confidence -Cobb, Floyd, and others—one leading idea had taken possession of his mind, that in the civil contest which threatened to break out the North must not shed the first drop of blood. This idea is the key to his submission to much which should have been met with prompt and vigorous resistance. During the seven weeks I was with him he rarely failed to come to my room about ten o'clock, and converse with me for about an hour on the great questions of the day before going to his own room. I was strongly impressed with his conscientiousness. But he was timid and credulous. His confidence was easily gained, and it was not difficult for an artful man to deceive him. But I remember no instance in my unreserved intercourse with him in which I had reason to doubt his uprightness. Tuesdays and Fridays were Cabinet days. The members met without notice at the President's house in the morning. My order was given, as has been stated, on Tuesday evening. I said nothing to the President in regard to it, though he was with me every evening, until Friday, when the members of the Cabinet were all assembled, and the President was about to call our attention to the business of the day. I then said to him, 'Mr. President, I fear we have lost some more of our revenue cutters.' 'Ah!' said he, 'how is that?' I then told him what occurred down to the receipt of the despatch from Mr. Jones informing me that Captain Breshwood refused to obey my order. 'Well,' said he, 'what did you do?' I then repeated to him, slowly and distinctly, the order I had sent. When I came to the words, 'shoot him on the spot,' he started suddenly, and said, with a good deal of emotion, 'Did you write that?' 'No, sir,' I replied, 'I did not write it, but I telegraphed it. He made no answer, nor do I remember that he ever referred to it afterward. It was manifest,

as I had presupposed, that the order would never have been given if I had consulted

him.

It only remains for me to say that the order was not the result of any premeditationscarcely of any thought. A conviction of the right course to be taken was as instantaneous as a flash of light; and I did not think, when I seized the nearest pen (a very bad one as the fac-simile shows) and wrote the order in as little time as it would take to read it, that I was doing anything particularly worthy of remembrance. It touched the public mind and heart strongly, no doubt, because the blood of all patriotic men was boiling with indignation at the humiliation which we were enduring; and I claim no other merit than that of having thought rightly, and of having expressed strongly what I felt in common with the great body of my countrymen.

It gives me great pleasure, my dear Mrs. Blodgett, to place in your hands this plain history of an official act which has made me so much your debtor. I can never forget that I owe to your kindness the most valuable testimonial of my public services that I have ever received. The obligation is the more grateful to me, because you seem of all others to be the least conscious of the value of what you have conferred.

With the sincerest regard, your friend,

John A. Dix."

The "valuable testimonial" mentioned above, was a beautiful flag of blue silk, the figure of Liberty rising from her seat, grasping the American flag with one hand and holding the thunderbolts with the other, elaborately embroidered on each side with the motto, "IF ANY ONE ATTEMPTS TO HAUL DOWN THE AMERICAN FLAG SHOOT HIM ON THE SPOT." This was presented to General Dix, then President of the United States Sanitary Commission, on the evening of the 23d of April, 1864, the closing day of the New York Sanitary Fair. The flag was designed by Leutze, and made by Tiffany & Co., at the expense of Mrs. Blodgett. The gift was accompanied by an autograph book, bearing on its pages many illustrious names, with that of Abraham Lincoln at the head of the list.

The inquiries naturally arise in the minds of a score of millions of the rising generation of American citizens, "What was done with the order of General Dix? Was there any shooting of the man who hauled down the flag?" The answer lies in these few brief words. The message reached its destination too late; the flag was already down, and the revenue cutter in the rebel service as a vessel of war. At the capture of New Orleans this vessel was abandoned and set on fire; in the midst of the flames a naval officer in the Union service rushed on board and brought away the identical flag that was hauled down, and it is still sacredly preserved-a mute witness to the truth of its strange and dramatic history..

When General Dix laid down the burden of official service, on the 4th of March, 1861, and returned to his home and his domestic avocations, he hoped that no exigency of the times would call him again into public life.

But within two months, as we have seen, he girded his armor about him and started for the field. The Civil War, so much dreaded, was a grim and horrible reality. Skilled commanders were needed. The services of such a man as General Dix were of the first consequence to the country. He received his first appointment from the state; but he soon received a Major-general's commission from the United States, and in June was ordered to Washington. July 24, the day prior to the battle of Bull Run, he succeeded General Banks in command of the Department of Maryland. No post at that crisis was more important. The city of Baltimore was like a suppressed volcano; an outbreak was imminent. The loss of Baltimore would be the loss of Maryland, and the loss of Maryland would probably be the loss of Washington, and the Union cause. The leading advocates of secession were influential, and the disaster at Bull Run inspired them with confidence. The Confederate colors were worn in the streets, and Confederate flags were hoisted in many places. Rumors filled the air that aid was coming swiftly to "emancipate" the city from the control of the Government. General Dix ruled with an iron hand, but with all his soldierly qualities his statesmanship was even more conspicuous in the wise measures adopted for keeping Baltimore quiet. This subject will in the course of our war studies form a special chapter of itself. It is true that he saved Maryland to the Union. He was transferred to Fortress Monroe in May, 1862, and July 18, 1863, just after the draft riot, he was ordered to New York to relieve General Wool of his command of the Department of the East. Under his able management the draft was completed in August, and the violent classes dared not move in opposition.

After the war General Dix was appointed Naval Officer of the port of New York; an office he presently resigned to accept the appointment of minister to the court of Napoleon III. He sailed for France in November, 1866, and spent two and one-half years at the French capital. In 1872 he was elected Governor of New York. One of the curious facts in this connection was that while he was as notably a Democrat as he had ever been, his nominatian to the gubernatorial chair came from the Republican party -through the counsels of Thurlow Weed, it was said, his former political adversary in the days of the "Albany Regency."

General Dix was in active public service sixty-three continuous years, and was called to almost every office that a citizen can fill. Such a record is rare, if indeed it has its parallel in any other instance in American history. And he was one of the few whose acts will bear the closest scrutiny, and whose private life was without a blemish.

THE REVOCATION OF THE "EDICT OF NANTES" *

Mere difference of opinion has ever been a fruitful source of strife. Especially have those cherishing religious dogmas entertained feelings of hostility toward those who would not be convinced.

Even men, wise and humane, will join in a bitter hue and cry on questions, the truth or falsity of which is not susceptible of proof, and the truth or falsity of which is of no real concern to humanity.

There is no injustice so great, no prejudice so bitter, no hate so lasting, no enmity so unrelenting as that which has its foundation in sectarian opposition.

No deeds have been so bloody, no persecutions so cruel, no wars so terrible, as those instigated by differences of religious credence; and, it may be said, that no acts have been more shameful to humanity than those that make the ecclesiastical history of civilized Europe.

Races, nations and individuals resolved theological questions by mutual slaughter-the Christian dove, surviving the attacks of Paganism, as it sailed down the tide of centuries, became as a vulture smeared with gore; and the blood of Christian sectaries flowed from wounds, mutually inflicted, as deep as those ever made by a Nero or a Diocletian. The theological variation of the numerous sects, even of Christian belief, that have been and are, astonish, confound and confuse us- not only those of semi-barbarian periods but among the enlightened. Looking back, from apostolic time, the schisms and sects have followed in a continuous and turbid stream.

The Gnostics with their cons and demi-urge, the Manichæans with their dualism and paraclete-the doctrines of Sabellius with his one essence, balanced by Arius and his triple division-the doctrine of the "Omoousios" affirmed as a fundamental truth under Constantine, and the

* There is no feature of our Colonial history more interesting than the various causes which led to the successive migrations from Europe of the colonists who peopled our sea-board States. Of these causes Religious persecution was perhaps the most prominent. While the English Puritan took refuge in New England, the French Huguenots flocked to the shores of New York, at a later period; and their descendants form a large and esteemed portion of our population. The history of the exodus of the Huguenots from France under the unwise and cruel persecution of the French rulers, who sought to render abortive and finally revoked the great civil and religious compact called the Edict of Nantes," is replete with interest. The above article will form one of the chapters of a historical work on "The Treaty of Utrecht" now in press.-EDITOR.

66